Harder to Breathe
by Kathryn Adkins
Summary: Buffy finds newly-ensouled Spike in the highschool basement... how will she get him to leave? Maroon 5 provides the soundtrack and inspiration...


__

I've come to the conclusion that Maroon 5 should have named their album "Songs About Buffy." Every song captured exactly what Spike must have felt at one point or another. Thanks to Maroon 5 for the inspiration. And to Joss for characters worth reviving again and again.

* * *

How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable

So condescending unnecessarily critical

I have the tendency of getting very physical

So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle

You drain me dry and make me wonder why I'm even here

This Double Vision I was seeing is finally clear

You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone

Not fit to fuckin' tread the ground that I am walking on

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love

You'll understand what I mean when I say

There's no way we're gonna give up

And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams

Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

What you are doing is screwing things up inside my head

You should know better you never listened to a word I said

Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat

Hoping somebody someday will do you like I did

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love

You'll understand what I mean when I say

There's no way we're gonna give up

And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams

Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

Does it kill

Does it burn

Is it painful to learn

That it's me that has all the control

Does it thrill

Does it sting

When you feel what I bring

And you wish that you had me to hold

--"Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5

* * *

_Filthy. Unclean. Monster._ He heard the words echoing in his head; the words she'd called him so many times before. You'd think he'd have grown a thicker skin by now, but the pain hadn't hurt any less each time she venomously spat those words at him. Wasn't even fit to be treading the ground she was walking on. _Painfully clear, Slayer. Make sure I never forget, won't you, Your Holy Fucking Eminence?  
_  
At one time, he'd thought she might have liked a little monster in her man. So hard to tell with the Slayer. _Broken, broken Slayer. Fucked-up little girl. _And what did that make him? Glutton for punishment, for one. Maybe gone a little 'round the twist himself after all those years learning the fucked-up ways of love from Dru.  
  
He'd gone and got the damned soul. There was no way around it. It was the one thing keeping him from her. It was the only thing that separated him from those other gits who wanted her. It's what made it possible for her to have a little monster in her man. And it was the one thing keeping him from her.  
  
_Self-loathing Fool._ Slayer said beg you big, bad doggie. And what had he done? Begged. Pleaded. Cried to her like a nancy-boy. _Woof._ The soul screamed in his head so loudly that the sheer pain of it blinded him, left him immobile like a fly trapped in some beautiful spider's paralyzing web. He fell to his knees, keening as he gripped his head. His memories of all of the kills were dreadful enough. But when he realized what she had done to him, it was as if he were the one being killed. It was like being staked by her words over and over again.  
  
When had he become so stupid? _Foolish_. Like William the Bloody. Had William always been present in him? Or had she unleashed him with her cutting words and breaking bones? It didn't matter. Not anymore. The soul completed him. It fused itself with William and Spike creating some magnificent trinity within him. Made the double vision he was seeing finally clear. She was no better than he was. Bottom-feeders, they were, the both of them. The lowest link in the food chain. Only he just hadn't realized that. Not before he got the soul.  
  
He'd begged her for forgiveness and then had stopped her before she could give it to him. Filthy creatures didn't deserve forgiveness. He'd heard as much from her.  
  
_Bloody Hell!_ The white-hot pain seared through his head again, burning in the backs of his eyes. _You're beneath me_. It echoed as his mind replayed crushing kisses and naked bodies writhing in synergetic pleasure and pain. What is love if not the antithesis of hate? And what is hate if not a corruption of love?  
  
"Won't you look at me?"  
  
Why was she there? He'd had enough of being the freakshow she was viewing. He just wanted peace. Was that too much to ask?  
  
"Spike?" She grabbed his chin roughly and forced him to see her. Had to be her. Nothing about her had ever been tender when it came to him. Yet it couldn't be her.  
  
"Not real! Not. Real." He shook an angry finger at her and twisted his face from her hand.  
  
"I have to get you out of here. It's this place, Spike. You have to get out of here."  
  
"Not going. Not going anywhere with the likes of you, Slayer," he spat at her through clenched teeth.  
  
She sighed and knelt beside him. Smelled of sweetness. Like Christmas. And summertime after a storm. Like all things good. Like things he no longer deserved.  
  
"This place is making you crazy," she told him. She was on one knee, her elbow resting on the one that was bent. She ran her hand through her honeyed hair. He wasn't listening to her.  
  
"Spike." Her voice was barely a whisper. Her face had softened as she looked at him. _Broken, broken vampire._ Even more fucked-up with that shiny new soul.  
  
"Don't want you any more, Slayer. You don't belong here." He was pointing to the place his heart should be. "Don't belong _in_ me. Don't belong in _you_. Just leave me be, Slayer. Leave me be."  
  
He could feel her staring at him with steely eyes. _Kill her_, he heard the words in his head. _Make her die a little bit. Make her feel you_.  
  
His mind flashed back to that night in her bathroom. She was wrapped in her robe, drawing her bathwater. Preparing to rid her skin of the slick of filth it had accumulated that day. But she'd never be rid of it. Not as long as he was there. It would embed itself into her pores. It would envelop her in its dark cloak. _Unclean.  
_  
"_No_!" he yelled, inching away from her. He was cowering under her glare. "_Unclean! Filthy! Monster_!"  
  
She drew in a sharp breath. She knew the words had come from her. So many times. But she had failed to rend herself heartless when it came to him. No matter what he did. No matter how she tried.  
  
"No... don't _say_ those things," she pleaded with him. He could hear her voice breaking. _Broken.  
_  
He straightened himself and worked his jaw. Clenching. Unclenching. Anger building. The bile of his pain was sour in his throat and on his tongue.  
  
"I want you _gone, _Slayer." He spoke slowly, deliberately. "I want you out of my head. Get out of my head, Slayer! Stop screwing with my head." His words were becoming desperate despite his attempts to keep control. "Out of my head, Slayer! Don't need you here anymore! That's what the soul's for... don't need you buggering things up."  
  
She wanted to take him in her trembling arms, just to prove that she was real and that she wasn't leaving. Not without him. But her muscles failed her. Her arms remained at her side too scared, on their own accord, to move. She felt the hot tears burning in her eyes.  
  
"I'm. Not. Leaving. Without. You."  
  
He screamed in frustration. There was no getting through to this girl. Headstrong and full of ignorant hope.  
  
"Bloody Hell, Slayer! It's not this place! It's not the soul! It's YOU. _YOU_."  
  
He saw the confusion worry her brow. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Just a jumble of stammered half-words she couldn't string together as something rational. She stood over him and put her hands on her hips. He felt her as her boot hit his ribs.  
  
"Argh! Fucking... bint! Break me, yeah? If not with your words, with your bones. I can take it, Slayer." He stood to face her baring his chest to her.  
  
"Do it," he dared her. "Take your rage and hate and all that venom that accompanies it and just do it, because I don't want this any more."  
  
He was daring her to kill him. Stake him. Take away all the hurt and pain. Take away all the nasty words and bruising memories. Put it all to rest. And she wouldn't. She couldn't.  
  
"Why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing this?" She turned her back to him and was pacing the way that he did when the stress got to be too much. Her face was contorted with anger, confusion and pain. "What do you want from me? I don't want to kill you, Spike. I want to help you. I want you to come with me. Come home with me."  
  
"I have no home," he croaked out, voice in a hoarse whisper. _Filthy. Unclean. Monster.  
_  
"Yes, you _do..._ with me."  
  
"Don't you listen, Slayer? Don't you _hear_ me?" He was drawing ragged, unneccessary breaths. He felt too weak to argue with her, but too angry to let her win. She always won.  
  
"You drain me dry, Slayer. Make me wonder why I'm even here. Why?"  
  
She still had her back to him. He could tell that her arms were crossed in front of her. Her weight rested on one foot while the other shuffled nervously. He saw her trembling and smelled the salt of her tears. Those tears had once been the source of his pleasure. _Scared little girl_. He had taken pleasure in the fact that he was once the monster that lived in her dreams. And then things had changed. And it wasn't because of some spell-gone-awry by Red. It wasn't because of some great shift in the universe. It was because of something that changed in _him_. Before the soul. Before the chip.  
  
Love had swallowed him whole. Even as she had lashed out at him with words like swords and eyes like daggers, he had wanted her. Loved her. _Love's bitch_. Sometimes he thought that's all he was. Some whore for her attention. Never her affection. He wasn't good enough for that. Always beneath her.  
  
"I'm. Not. Going." He heard the words grit through her teeth. Angry. And... something else. She swung around and glared at him. Her eyes were nearly black with her fury and frustration. He half-expected her to start jumping up and down with her fists clenched in some sort of temper-tantrum meant only for him. Her whole demeanor was that of a spoiled child. She was a little girl who hadn't gotten her way and God save the poor bloke who had to suffer her wrath.  
  
"You're not making me leave! I'm not going! NOT going," she screamed at him. The tears were flooding her features in a blinding fury. "You promised me, Spike! You promised that you would never leave me. You're not allowed to leave me! _You can't leave me_!"  
  
Yes. He'd promised. But since when was he honorable in her eyes? What made her think that he'd be bound to those desperate words?  
  
"Furthermore... I'm not leaving _you_. I don't care if we both wither up and die here together. There's no way... no way we're gonna give up." Her bottom lip jutted out in defiance. "I can't give you up."  
  
He rubbed his head. Just like her. Make it all about Buffy. Turn it into what Buffy wanted.  
  
"You love me. You_ told_ me... I don't know _how_ many times. Why are you doing this to me?" She was so childlike with her accusations and pouty lips.  
  
"I'm not. I'm not doing anything to _you_," he told her. She felt the indifference in his voice. And it stung.  
  
"You... you're hurting me." It was almost inaudible.  
  
"Not possible, Love," he told her. No, she'd have to actually admit that she cared before he could hurt her. And how many times had she told him that would never happen?  
  
He watched her drop to her knees. Her body shook as she brought her hands to her head.  
  
"Know you're not real," he whispered. "Real Slayer would have been long gone. Would have scampered off by now."  
  
"Is that what you think of me? That all I do is run? That I don't feel anything? That I can't _care_?" She turned on him fleying him with wounded eyes.  
  
He shrugged. The insanity was dying down. His head was a little less muddled. Those words were still singing in his soul, though. _Filthy. Unclean. Monster.  
_  
"_You_ made me feel," she threw at him. "You're the _only_ one who could get through to me. The only one strong enough to break down the walls. You filled me up and made me whole again."  
  
Her admission took him by surprise.  
  
"But it wasn't real, Slayer. It wasn't good. It wasn't..." Wasn't what? Love? Of course, it was love. On some basic, primal level. But it wasn't hearts and flowers and i's dotted with little bubbles.  
  
"Love?" she asked. Her eyes were piercing him, searching him for the right answer. The only answer.  
  
"Love," he answered.  
  
"Wasn't it?"  
  
He wasn't sure what to say to her. Fear and loathing. Clutching her pillow writhing in a naked sweat. Physical. Brutal. But love?  
  
"You said you loved me," she whispered in accusation. "Did you _mean_ it?"  
  
"As best as I know that love is," he admitted. That didn't make it real or right.  
  
"As best as... I see." She still had him locked in her eyes. "You _can't _take it back."  
  
He cocked his head to the side, catching her off-guard.  
  
"Can't I?"  
  
"No. That would be... unacceptable."  
  
"You wouldn't accept that?" He was watching her. She was real. She was breathing. He could hear the coarsing blood and beating heart. Her pulse had quickened. Her heart was racing, playing out a rhythm no man could tap out or duplicate.  
  
"I _wouldn't_."  
  
He took a cautious step toward her. She didn't move.  
  
"Couldn't?" he asked.  
  
She took a step toward him.  
  
"_Couldn't_," she assured him.  
  
"Slayer?" he asked, silently questioning her intentions.  
  
"William," she responded. "Spike. Mine."  
  
They covered the distance between them slowly, equally, meeting in the middle. He ran a trembling hand over her cheek, barely grazing the skin. _Real._ He felt the burning in his chest and it felt good. He felt alive.  
  
"If I tell you I love you," he began as he searched her eyes, "you'll only run. You'll hear the words and bolt like a frightened doe." He sighed and watched her. She stood almost nose to nose with him.  
  
"Not running."  
  
"I..."  
  
She cut him off before he could finish, crushing his mouth with hers. His hand tangled itself in her hair, the other held her waist, scared that she would take flight the moment reality settled into her Slayer head. He felt her tongue slip into his mouth and realized that she had slowed the pace. She took her time exploring his mouth before pulling away. But not running.  
  
He stared at her, not daring to say the words. He couldn't watch her run away again. He'd have to take a final look at the sun if she left again.  
  
She stroked his cheek before taking her hand in his.  
  
"I love you," she said. "Please come home."  
  
He nodded and followed her out of the basement. As long as he was with her, he was home.


End file.
